Sunday, July 25, 2010

'Salt' reviewed


Angelina Jolie as agent Evelyn Salt. Watch the preview: http://www.moviefone.com/movie/salt/37107/main
Salt's previews promised a big budget, kickass action/spy thriller starring Angelina Jolie. I enjoy these kind of revved up movies where you can turn off your brain and enjoy following the twisting narrative that usually ends with a surprise you should not see coming. Here Jolie plays a CIA agent named Evelyn Salt who is accused by a top Russian defector of being a spy who will kill the Russian president while attending a funeral in NYC. When she flees after his interrogation by her to warn her husband their lives are in danger, she is assumed guilty and goes on the run.
>>And what a run it is! She's clever, agile, good with disguises, and inventive in making use of any object to create a weapon. The action scenes and split second escapes are as tense and well choreographed as those from a James Bond film. These stunts are physically impossible but this is what you expect in this kind of film and its makers never fail to deliver. The action never lets up except to provide info we need to follow the story line.
>>Only one co-worker (Liev Sheiber) believes Jolie is innocent and he cannot persuade the others but is forced along to join the hunt from Washington DC to NYC. Can he be trusted to save her? What really matters is Jolie innocent, or a Russian mole, or a patsy duped by a conspiracy that's not yet revealed? The answer is finally revealed through flashbacks and conversations about previous incidents we witnessed. The revelation of the villain (I'm not saying here that it's Jolie; go see the film to find out.) caught me off guard because there were enough ambiguous plot points to sidetrack me. You had to briefly think back to connect the dots to find the answers.
>>People seem to like or hate Jolie depending on their view of her personal life. If you like Jolie, you will be swept along with the story. She's the best female action star around and comes across as Lara Croft without the self-serving smirk and with James Bond's survival skills. You really need to suspend your sense of disbelief to accept her as capable of doing anything but hey, it's only a movie that's meant to entertain. Bond movies are unrealistic too but never fail to satisfy audiences.
>>After struggling last week through Inception, Salt was a welcome relief on a hot summer's day. It all makes sense at the end unlike Inception ... at least to me... once you briefly thought back to mercifully few flashbacks and coversations about recent incidents to connect the dots to provide answers. Director Phillip Noyce who helmed 1999's The Bone Collector featuring Jolie in one of her first starring roles in a big feature (second billing to Denzel Washington) knows how to keep the pace moving fast enough to pull you through the story's bumpy ride.

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